While Obama celebrates new manufacturing jobs in Michigan, factory workers shouldn't get their hopes up

AP PhotoPresident Barack Obama greets auto workers during his visit to the Jefferson North Chrysler Plant in Detroit on Friday.

Michigan has lost almost half of its manufacturing jobs over the past decade, nearly 450,000 factory positions that paid for homes, cars, vacations and college educations.

President Barack Obama and Sen. John McCain told us repeatedly during the 2008 presidential campaign that most of those jobs weren't coming back.

It seemed like the time had finally arrived for Michigan to embark on a new economic journey that would include manufacturing, but mainly knowledge jobs in areas such as health care, education, and financial, technical and business services.

But as the economy slowly climbs out of a deep hole dug during the Great Recession, the buzz is all about how Michigan can recapture its manufacturing glory.

The economic conversation is dominated by the resurgence of the domestic automakers, battery-powered vehicles and manufacturing-based green jobs.

The headline of a new study by the University Research Corridor proclaims manufacturing is "alive and well" in Michigan. (More about that in a bit.)

And to the extent candidates for governor are talking about something other than tax and spending cuts, it's about improving the climate for making things in Michigan.

It's understandable that Michigan wants to recapture the industry that provided so much wealth over the past 100 years.

"If there was a way back to good times, everybody would want to do it," said Lou Glazer, president of Michigan Future Inc., an Ann Arbor-based think tank that advocates for a knowledge-based state economy.

But Michigan will never return to a decade ago when the state had 900,000 manufacturing jobs.

And many of the new manufacturing production jobs will pay less than the hundreds of thousands that were lost in the recession.

That's a big reason Michigan is becoming a poorer state.

Gov. Jennifer Granholm and others are quick to point out that today's manufacturing isn't done in your father's factory.

They say Michigan is shifting to "advanced manufacturing," highly skilled jobs that require at least some college or training beyond high school.

In a new report, the University Research Corridor found that there were 381,000 advanced manufacturing jobs in Michigan in 2007. (The URC is a research consortium involving the University of Michigan, Michigan State University and Wayne State University.)

Those jobs paid an average wage of $64,122, well above the $40,935 average for all jobs in the state.

But 10 percent of those jobs were in the auto industry and included some traditional auto assembly jobs.

And just 124,610 jobs were in high-end knowledge positions, such as research, engineering, design and consulting.

While advanced manufacturing is important to Michigan's economy, it's not likely to produce more than about 10 percent of the state's total jobs.

Glazer says an enormous challenge for the state is convincing displaced, low-skilled factory workers they need to be trained for jobs mostly outside of manufacturing -- and then providing it.

"If these workers unable or unwilling to get re-skilled, we've got a huge problem," he said.